Eurazeo Brands has made a $53 million funding in Pangaea Holdings, the mother or father firm of males’s grooming manufacturers Lumin and Meridian.
The minority funding is a part of Pangaea’s bigger $68 million fundraise, which additionally included Unilever Ventures, GPO Fund and current buyers Base10 Partners and Gradient Ventures. Since it was based in 2018, the corporate has raised $87 million.
Lumin sells males’s pores and skin, hair and physique merchandise that have been formulated in South Korea. The model’s lineup contains Moisturizing Balm, $29; Dark Circle Defense eye cream, $29; Clarifying Body Wash, $13.75; Natural Mineral Deodorant, $15, and different merchandise.
Meridian sells grooming and private care merchandise, together with a pubic hair trimmer for $69.99 and “Ball Spray” meant to maintain “cojones super fresh,” in response to the model’s web site.
The founders of Pangaea, Richard Hong and Darwish Gani.
Mike Windle
Richard Hong, one of many firm’s founders, began creating Lumin after realizing his pals have been all utilizing skincare however in secret. “They were all using Korean beauty products but hiding them in their drawers,” mentioned cofounder Darwish Gani, who got here on board after Hong had began Lumin.
Both Hong and Gani have tech backgrounds that they used to create the proprietary e-commerce platform used to distribute each Lumin and Meridien globally.
“We realized the interest in skin care was relatively global, it wasn’t just U.S. men who were interested,” Gani mentioned.
They noticed that manufacturers that have been set as much as promote by way of Amazon or with Shopify have been outfitted to promote merchandise domestically, however not globally, Gani mentioned.
So the pair set personal to construct their very own “e-commerce stack,” Gani mentioned, organizing warehouses, logistics and funds in 40 totally different international markets.
Lumin makes males’s skincare merchandise.
Mike Windle
“It was pretty clear that if we started more brands on top of that we’d be able to grow them in more countries really quickly,” he mentioned. “Lumin had a very aggressive growth story, I’d say one of the faster more capital efficient direct-to-consumer ones we’ve seen at least, and then we started our second brand Meridian…[and] that brand went faster than the first one. It’s growing maybe at twice the speed Lumin grew at and it’s only a year in, but it’ll be as big as Lumin in a year from now, we think.”
The e-commerce platform was of main curiosity to Eurazeo, in response to Eurazeo Brands chief government officer Jill Granoff and David Choi, principal at Eurazeo Brands.
“What attracted us most is the visionary, tech-savvy founders that have created this proprietary platform to scale businesses on a global basis, quickly and profitably,” Granoff mentioned.
“Ricky and Darwish had a pretty visionary idea and fundamentally they’re viewing e-commerce version 2.0 or 3.0 as a global opportunity,” Choi mentioned. “What they’re really trying to achieve is global commerce as a service.”
“Men’s has historically been an underserved market,” Granoff continued. “A lot of the Gen Z and Millennial guys, they don’t necessarily want to shop in the department stores and some of the specialty retailers. So to be able to reach them in the way they want to be reached and to provide education and how to use skin care and some of the grooming products we feel is a real point of advantage.”
Eurazeo will use its international scale to assist Pangaea proceed to develop, Granoff added, and its Rolodex to assist herald key hires.
“A big part of raising this round with Eurazeo, because our business is profitable, we didn’t need the money, was can we actually professionalize our team to help run and grow these brands to the next level, but also give us some ammo to actually go and build a more complex bi-pronged business,” Gani mentioned, with one facet being the manufacturers, and the opposite being the platform.
With the funding, Pangaea plans to develop into different classes and begin licensing the e-commerce operation out to different manufacturers. “We want to make it easier for them to sell in international markets than it was for them to get up and running in their own market,” Gani mentioned.
The firm is claimed to be rising shortly, and business sources mentioned the enterprise is projecting $100 million in gross sales for 2021. The manufacturers have seen gross sales from greater than 70 international locations, and the enterprise has greater than 300 workers in 4 workplaces. Gani mentioned that within the subsequent 18 months, he expects the variety of workers to double.
Private fairness curiosity in males’s grooming has picked up in current months, as males’s attitudes round skincare and private care evolve. In December, The Carlyle Group purchased a majority stake in Every Man Jack, and Main Post Partners invested in Duke Cannon. There are additionally a slew of different males’s grooming companies — together with Manscaped, Dr. Squatch and others — which might be mentioned to have been out out there speaking to potential buyers.
FOR MORE FROM WWD.COM, SEE:
The Shifting Attitudes Behind Men’s Growing Grooming Routines
The Rise of Makeup for Men
Has Manscaping Gone Mainstream?
